Our Publications

Through our public resources we provide manifold insights from our work. Our intention is to create mutually inspiring exchanges between academics, practitioners, teachers and trainers in the field of conflict transformation. Our Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation offers a distinct platform for international exchange and creative discussions. We also run several publication series: the Berghof Papers, Berghof Policy Briefs, as well as the Berghof Educational series. In addition, we also release multimedia materials and provide input papers, project reports and other resources, which we feel are useful to our partners in the field. Our resources can be purchased in our shop. Most publications are also available as free downloads.

Peace Process Support in Times of Crises. The National Dialogue Support Programme in Yemen 2014-16

A Project Report

The National Dialogue Support Programme's aim was to strengthen and protect the political transition process by supporting locally-owned and inclusive structures and mechanisms for political dialogue, informed decision-making and trust- and consensus-building. Yet, at the same time it had to respond to the political dynamics in Yemen which changed dramatically - and at times very quickly- between February 2014 and December 2016.

What are the main drivers of political transition and regime change? And to what extent do these apparently seismic political changes result in real change? These questions are the focus of this comparative study written by a mix of scholars and practitioners. This state-of-the-art volume identifies patterns in political transitions, but is largely unconvinced that these transitions bring about real change to the underlying structures of society. Patriarchy, land tenure, and economic systems often remain immune to change, despite the headlines.

The 2019 edition of the Berghof Glossary revisits the main principles and approaches that we use in our work to supports people and conflict parties around the world. For a second time, our team has embarked on a joint exploration in order to chart a shared understanding of what it takes to create “space(s) for conflict transformation”.

This exploration decidedly disengages from the prevalent discourses on youth, which are already quite well-covered in literature: ‘they are both troublemakers and peacemakers’ or ‘they are a special and potent category of peace agents, and
therefore need to be empowered’. Rather, the focus of this exploration is on existing
stories of dialogic and mediative efforts in the youth space, in an attempt to bring to light some insights usually left in the dark, and to stimulate a discourse hitherto absent. This is deemed particularly timely, given the inception of a myriad
of initiatives since the adoption of Resolution 2250.

Our Annual Report 2017 sheds light on the highly relevant concept of multipartiality and its guiding role for our programmes and project work. We are convinced that it is a far more promising response to current conflict dynamics and challenges than the return to power politics and dominance.
The detailed reports from our projects illustrate the diversity of our activities as a whole. They also reveal that multipartiality offers promising opportunities to make a positive difference in protracted conflicts and violence prevention by counteracting incentives to resolve conflicts at the expense of others and create new grievances.

Dealing with violent extremism (VE) has emerged as a central framework of analysis and policy-making in most Western and non-Western government agencies. It is also heavily shaping the programming of non-governmental agencies, not least due to the availability of related funding lines.
While there is an undeniable need to address violent extremism, this latest Berghof Handbook Dialogue takes as one premise that more often than not, analysis and programming to date often fall short in understanding and tackling the root causes of the phenomenon. Our lead article proposes: "Ultimately, addressing VE is fundamentally about conflict transformation, yet CVE/PVE interventions are rarely designed to be transformative."

Creating Opportunities To Work With Diasporas In Humanitarian Settings

Diaspora organisations (DOs) are newly recognised actors in the humanitarian space. DOs respond to crises such as those in Syria, Somalia, and Nigeria, which have shown the limitations of the traditional humanitarian sector. Their
contributions to emergency response are under-studied and, as our research shows, often misunderstood due to a gap in knowledge about their work. This report contributes to filling this gap. It sets out to understand how DOs contribute to strengthening humanitarian response in crisis settings. We explore opportunities to work with DOs in humanitarian action through six case studies of DOs operating in Somalia and Syria. Fieldwork was conducted in seven remote sites of humanitarian intervention,including in Nigeria, where DO actions are still limited. A context analysis for Nigeria provides an entry point into understanding the potential for DOs to contribute in the northeastern region.

Changing the past in our heads. A facilitator's guide to listening workshops

Educational & Multimedia

The history of this manual goes back to November 2012, when the Berghof Foundation’s Caucasus Programme gathered young people from Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia to learn how to record biographical interviews and discuss questions of history, memory and conflict. This was the starting point of a process involving Georgian, Abkhaz and South Ossetian stakeholders of war-memorialization: the “Berghof History Dialogue Process”.

From Power Mediation to Dialogue Support? Assessing the European Union's Capabilities for Multi-Track Diplomacy

Research Report

This paper presents results from the European Union Horizon 2020-funded project “Whole-of-Society Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding”
(WOSCAP). It is one of three cross-country comparative assessments of EU capabilities for conflict prevention and peacebuilding with regards to various thematic 'clusters' of external intervention. The other two comparative studies deal with EU support for security sector reform and decentralisation reform. The empirical contents are primarily based on field research carried out by local partner organisations in Mali, Yemen, Georgia and Ukraine. For more information on the WOSCAP project, see the website http://www.woscap.eu/.

This small booklet aims at providing some guidance, inspiration and practical tools for those who are engaged in the planning and facilitation of dialogue processes or who are advocating for dialogue as a means for solving conflict. Initially, the publication started out as a handout, sharing insights into setting up and conducting constructive dialogues around contentious issues specifically in contexts of violence-prone conflict. Norbert Ropers, together with numerous insider mediators and external experts, drew it together based on joint decades of experience in accompanying and facilitating such constructive conversations and negotiations. Its audience were first and foremost local practitioners. The "handout" subsequently met with great interest and has been translated into Arabic and in parts into Spanish and Thai. Among the wealth of works on dialogue facilitation and methodology, its simplicity and its focus on working in settings of political and sometimes violence-prone conflict settings have set it apart.

Grounded in a series of contemporary case studies, this Handbook aims to contribute to the nascent debate about National Dialogue, bringing together insights and expertise from diverse regions. In doing so,
it seeks to present systematic reflections and offer practical advice. The Handbook thus supports conflict stake-holders and practitioners (both local and international) to grapple with the challenges they face and to pursue the most appropriate design for their particular context. Moving beyond simplistic approaches, the Handbook also seeks to provide an overview of National Dialogue processes, drawing from the expertise and practices of scholars and practitioners.

The peace education manual is the result of the cooperation between Berghof Foundation and the Tehran Peace Museum as part of the project “Promoting Peace Education in Iran”. It covers the main topics peace and peace education, violence and nonviolence, conflict and conflict transformation as well as global citizenship. Each section includes worksheets, ideas for the course conception and background material. The manual was specifically developed for Iran, but may also be used in other contexts as an introductory course to peace education.

Assessing donor support for inclusive and legitimate politics in fragile societies

The International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding’s ‘New Deal for engagement in Fragile States’ (“New Deal”) of late 2011 promised an end to ‘business as usual’ with regard to development efforts in fragile environments. This report takes stock of the question of how bilateral and multilateral donors have conceptualized and implemented their commitment to promote ‘legitim ate and inclusive political settlements and conflict resolution’ (PSG1). On the basis of empirical evidence acquired through case studies in Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan and Timor-Leste, the report finds that, at best, donors work with an incomplete and inadequate understanding of the typically fragmented and highly contested politics of fragile societies beyond the formal representatives of their governments and administrations.

“Undeclared Wars”– Exploring a Peacebuilding Approach to Armed Social Violence

Handbook Dialogue Series No. 12 - complete

In some countries, more civilians are being killed by armed gangs and criminal organisations than in traditional combat. Still, these pockets of armed social violence – "undeclared wars" marked, among other things, by criminal, gang and/or urban violence as well as extremist violence – have long received much less attention than politically motivated forms of armed conflicts. As their effects — social-political destabilisation, in some cases coinciding with high numbers of victims — are becoming more pressing, national and international actors have begun addressing the phenomenon.

In this 12th Berghof Handbook Dialogue, the authors of the lead article, Bernardo Arévalo de León and Ana Glenda Tager, argue that the inclusive and participatory methodologies offered by peacebuilding provide an operational strategy that would allow the international community to engage successfully with issues of armed social violence.
Five sets of respondents explore the actors, factors and dynamics of violence in different settings (among them Colombia, the UK, Nigeria, Mexico, Myanmar and Guinea-Bissau). They debate issues as diverse as the inter-connectedness of political, social and private violence, the need to work closely with government agencies, civil society and agents of violence, as well as the merits of specific participatory methodologies. They discuss what peacebuilding and other initiatives have achieved, and where they have fallen short.
The Dialoge is rounded out by an introduction by the editors and a "response to the respondents by the lead authors".

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Handbook

The Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation is our flagship publication. Continuously updated, this renowned resource offers an online platform for both academics and practitioners to discuss new ideas and exchange experiences in the field of conflict transformation. It presents stand-alone articles as well as scholar-practitioner dialogues.
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Policy Briefs

Berghof Policy Briefs present commentary on conflict-related political issues and events. The short online format focuses on policy recommendations for political decision-makers, opinion-formers and influential civil society actors.
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Papers

Berghof Papers cover policy, research and practice reports and contain selected in-depth contributions to the fields we work on. They are written by Berghof staff and invited affiliates, partners and guest researchers.
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Annual Reports

Our annual reports feature highlights and provide background information on the Berghof Foundation’s work and structure
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Glossary

The Berghof Glossary on Conflict Transformation defines and discusses 20 core terms related to conflict transformation, which shape the work of the Berghof Foundation.
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Author/Editor

Year

Media Type

Community Perspectives on Preventing Violent Extremism Lessons learned from the Western Balkans

The 2019 edition of the Berghof Glossary revisits the main principles and approaches that we use in our work to supports people and conflict parties around the world. For a second time, our team has embarked on a joint exploration in order to chart a shared understanding of what it takes to create “space(s) for conflict transformation”.

The disarmament and dissolution of the Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, better known under its acronym ETA, is a unique example of a creative and unilateral transition to end armed conflict. After the collapse of the negotiation process between the Spanish government and ETA in 2006, an internal debate within the Basque pro-independence movement led to a change of strategy. The new direction eventually resulted in the disarmament and dissolution of ETA in May 2018. How did it come about and what lessons can be drawn from this case for other conflicts? This report looks at these questions in detail, based on in-depth interviews with actors who took part in this democratic transition process as well as on the direct involvement and experiences of the author himself. Urko Aiartza previously coauthored another Transition Series report on the Basque peace process, covering the 1958-2007 period and the various attempts at negotiation between ETA and the Spanish Government (Aiartza and Zabalo 2009). This report updates it, while concentrating more specifically on internal strategic decision-making, and highlighting the innovative aspects of the current peace process. Following an introductory section describing the need for creative, strategic thinking to resolve so-called intractable conflicts, Section 2 briefly references the collapse of the 2006/07 negotiation process between ETA and the Spanish Government, as this period is analysed more deeply in the aforementioned work. Section 3 focuses on the internal debate and the paradigm shift promoted by the Abertzale Left and its consequences. It describes the idea of unilaterality and its potential capacity to transform interparty dynamics. Section 4 focuses on the consequences of the previous strategic shift, mainly the end of the armed campaign and the opening of a possible scenario for talks. Section 5 analyses the stalemate that the transformation entered after the arrival in Government of the conservative Popular Party. It also analyses the ability of the Abertzale Left to try to overcome this stalemate through the opportunities opened by the new paradigm, and reviews the role of civil society in this new scenario. Section 6 focuses on ETA’s decision to end the armed campaign and the latest developments, as logical final steps of the paradigm shift. Finally, in Section 7 the author highlights some relevant lessons that can be learnt from this unique process.

This study analyses the peace and reconciliation efforts of the Afghan government and the armed opposition group, Hezb-e Islami. It identifies enabling factors and limitations of the peace process, the resulting agreement and its implementation, as well as lessons learnt that can be used in future peace negotiations in Afghanistan. Hezb-e Islami was founded to establish Islamic governance in Afghanistan during the 1970s. It has been one of the main resistance groups throughout the various phases of armed conflict – fighting invading Soviet forces and the Soviet-backed regime throughout the 1980s and the civil war in the 1990s, battling the Taliban for territorial control and then, after the Taliban was ousted in 2001, combatting the Afghan government and its international backers.